When you're on a bicycle at a red light with no car or pedestrian in sight, do you still wait for the green? Do you obey every single law? Surely fearful compliance with every niggling regulation defies the much-vaunted "freedom" that is the premise of democracy. Maybe that’s what drives our fascination with film and fiction criminality: we envy renegades. Is breaking a rule a day better than an apple for your health?
Lionel Shriver is an American author and journalist, living in the United Kingdom. Her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005. She writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and The Independent.